1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements in computer network interfaces, and more particularly, but without limitation, to a system, method, and memory for creating an itinerary list for any INTERNET or hypertext interface.
2. Background Information and Description of the Related Art
A user interacts with objects on a computer network using a "browser". A browser is a graphical user interface that allows users to navigate through the INTERNET. On the INTERNET, the user may navigate through various "sites", such as file systems, HTML documents, and file transfer protocol (FTP) sites. Conventional INTERNET browsers allow the user to explore these various sites using hypertext links. A hypertext link contains the name and URL (uniform resource locator) address of an INTERNET site. Typically, the browser displays hypertext links in a different shade of color from other text on the screen so that the user can readily identify the hypertext links. If a user clicks on a hypertext link, the browser takes the user from the current document to another document represented by that selected hypertext link. In turn, the destination document may contain additional hypertext links that go to yet more documents. In this manner, the user may navigate through multiple hierarchical layers of documents of various sites by continuing to select hypertext links.
However, there are certain disadvantages and limitations in conventional browsers. For example, suppose a page displays three hypertext links pointing to sites of particular interest to the user. The user begins by selecting a first hypertext link and may decide to navigate through several other hypertext links extending from the first link. When the user has finished navigating the path from the first hypertext link, he must return to the original page to select the second hypertext link. However, to do so, the user must backtrack through the links to the original page, whereupon the user can then select the second hypertext link. The obvious limitation of this procedure is that the user must select one link, look at it and follow its path, back up through a number of links to return to the original page, then select another link, navigate through it, back up, etc. This forward, backward, forward, backward jaunt through links is very tedious and time consuming. Also, in many cases the user cannot even navigate backward because the link's server is busy.
In an attempt to solve this problem, some conventional browsers utilize quicklists. A quicklist (also known as hotlist) is a stored list of links in some conventional browser, quicklists are permanent until the user manually deletes a link from the list. To store a link within the quicklist, the user must first open/visit the document represented by the link and then select an "add" button to add the link to the quicklist. Alternatively, the user may utilize the edit function of the quicklist to manually type in the name and address of the link.
Some other conventional browsers allow a user to save a link to their quicklist without first visiting it. However, the user may decide after visiting it that they do not wish to continue saving it. Deletion of a link in a quicklist can be tedious because the user must first find the link in what may be a very large list and then manually delete the link. Therefore, because it is tedious work to delete a link in a quicklist, users frequently visit the site before they add it to their quicklist. As such, the user must do all the backtracking if one page has multiple links of interest.
Therefore, there is a great demand for an interface browser that allows the user to store links into a temporary list that will not require manual deletion and will allow the user to visit multiple sites/documents on a page without backtracking. The user should be able to select any of the links in the itinerary at any time without backtracking, even if the user has navigated far away from the original page.